Russia urges NATO to help stop military build-up in Georgia

BRUSSELS: Russia's military chief urged NATO Thursday to take steps to stop a build-up of arms in its neighbour Georgia and warned that conflict could break out if no action is taken.
 
"NATO has to take measures in order to prevent arms supplies to that region," Russian defence chief Yuri Baluyevsky told reporters at the military alliance's headquarters in Brussels.

"I don't exclude that there could be a conflict in Georgia, and the only way to prevent it is to stop the militarisation," he said, after talks with defence chiefs from the 26 NATO member nations.

"In the past several months and years it has been growing," he said.

In a statement Thursday, the Russian defence ministry named the United States, Turkey, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic as among the main states providing military equipment, training and financial support to Georgia.

All are NATO members but are not acting under any NATO banner, officials at alliance headquarters said.

The defence ministry also said that a significant amount of military hardware was entering Georgia through Ukraine and that military cooperation with Israel was also growing.

An officer who took part in Thursday's talks at NATO acknowledged that Baluyevsky had mentioned one country with "unmanned aerial vehicles", or drones.

Russia has been angered by Georgia's attempts to join NATO, and it announced in April that it wanted closer ties with the two rebel Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has vowed to regain control over the two Moscow-backed provinces, which broke from central control in wars in the 1990s, but has said he hopes to avoid any military conflict.

As tensions have mounted -- including a row about the shooting down of a Georgian drone over Abkhazia -- Russia has increased the number of peacekeepers there to counter what it claimed was a possible Georgian military assault.

When asked if they were really needed, Baluyevsky said: "We feel that the situation is difficult and that it is not stable. We added just one battalion, which is about 500 troops."

The Russian army general said the peacekeepers did not exceed the maximum 3,000 allowed under a 1992 agreement.

"If there are any proposals that peacekeepers from European nations may go and preserve peace and stability, we will be happy to accept that proposal, but that has not happened," he added.